Computer Hardware 101
Monday, March 19th, 2007Since I’m taking a class on computer hardware for the IT department of the LaSalle Company, I thought I would pass on some interesting bits of information that I’ve learned. I’ve read some pretty insane things, and my appreciation for computers has just sky-rocketed! Check it out:
1. An optical mouse replaces the ball in a standard mouse with a microchip, miniature red light or laser light, and camera. The light illuminated the work surface, the camera takes 1500 snapshots PER SECOND, and the microship reports the tiniest changes to the computer. AMAZING!
2. Be careful of static electricity: feeling a shock discharges at least 1,500 volts of static electricity. When you hear the discharge, you released at least 6,000 volts. If you SEE the discharge, you’ve released 8,000 volts. A charge of only 10 volts can damage and electronic component such as an expansion card, a chip or the motherboard. With that having been said, do not place these components near a monitor because it can discharge up to 29,000 volts onto the screen!
3. Information travels inside the computer on a bus. When one component wants to communicate with another, the first component places voltage on the line (or on several lines of the bus) and the other reads the voltage. No voltage = 0 and voltage = 1. A bus can be 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 lines wide, all of these lines reading voltage or no voltage.
4. Each device (on the motherboard) works to the beat of a clock on the computer. Some devices, such as the CPU, can do two or more oprations in the beat of the clock. Today, data can be put on the system bus (the main bus connected to the CPU) at a rate of 1,600 MILLION beats PER SECOND! Can you imagine TONS of bits of information passed back and forth 1,600,000,000 times per second?!! yikes!